The concern is not a new thing but, as violent crime has surged in many urban areas, the intensity of that concern is growing, including among many Democratic voters.
Just exactly how is Preparation H gonna help California people!?
What, huh, Oh its Proposition H…
Oops.
It is nearly impossible to get anything done in the bay area homeless advocates here fight any common sense reforms with the same zeal as a red state NRA board member.
1 Like
Sad but true.
When I first moved up here I thought I’d give Bart a try.
Just awful. 3 times and I’m out.
I will drive myself or Uber pretty much everywhere.
2 Likes
But the article points out that in surrounding jurisdictions voters chose to re-elect officials using Boudin’s policies. So something other than policy preferences was at work in the recall. The article cites big money and police sabotage is suggested by another poster.
Both are factors but so is the fact that Chesa Boudin is tone deaf. Everything he and his do is correct, he’s the real victim here.
This is a quote the article cites approvingly to explain what went wrong :
Voters were not asked to choose between criminal justice reform and something else. They were given an opportunity to voice their frustration and their outrage, and they took that opportunity.”
It is fair to translate this as: ‘Nothing I did was wrong – the voters needed to vent and they took it out in me.’
This is not what is known as a winning political message.
A few things not mentioned:
There were a number of brazen, flash mob, smash and grab robberies in the Downtown area of San Francisco. Many high end stores now have high profile armed security and customers have to wait to get in to stores rather than just walk in. This is very obvious if you are walking around and it gives a feeling lawlessness. The media and the police gave the impression that nothing would be done to the criminals who would be caught by the police and immediately released.
There were also several stores such as Walgreen’s which closed supposedly due to high shoplifting rates. This was widely covered in the media and blamed on lax enforcement due to the DA’s policies of not prosecuting such crimes.
There have also been a large number of random vandalism events of parked cars wherein people take hammers and break the windows of numerous cars parked on the street.
Besides the regular media, there is also phone applications like NextDoor where local people post things that are happening in the neighborhood like coyote sightings or traffic accidents. These apps kind of get taken over by people posting about random burglaries, thefts etc. giving the impression of lawlessness with right wingers posting their opinion that these things are the result of lenient laws and DA.
Those things, along with the highly covered resignations of some Deputy DA’s, and criminals with long records which included violent type crime committing new high profile crimes led to people believing Boudin had gone too far.
When the police in your city go on strike and refuse to do their jobs (they even have a name for it “ROD”—retired on duty) this is what happens.
1 Like
Homeless encampments, particularly the large ones, are crime ridden. In Seattle, which has the third largest homeless population in the US, 18% of all shots-fired incidents in 2021 were associated with homelessness. Property crime is a major problem for the neighborhoods near the encampments. Inside the tent cities rapes and violence are common. The camps are magnets for drug dealers. Exploding propane gas canisters and fires have become a major safety issue.
The city has starting clearing out the encampments. The trash is cleaned up. Some of the residents accept placements in shelters or housing. Those who refuse pitch their tent someplace else or move in with family/friends. It is important that the residents of these camps do not get too comfortable in one spot and that the tent cities do not get too large.
1 Like
I think Boudin was specifically targeted just because he is in San Francisco, and strategic billionaires want to make the recall be about a place that is famous and famously liberal. As Josh’s contributor says, the recall campaign began the moment Boudin was in office. Initially it had nothing to do with Boudin’s actions, only with opposition to his reformist approach, as much as was known about it.
1 Like
Totally agree. To use another analogy, it’s like running into the coal mine after seeing 100 dead canaries. Ignoring or dismissing the increase in crime, just like those who are dismissive of inflation, comes off as more than a little obtuse. Also, I’d like to see some evidence to support the idea that eliminating cash bail is popular with voters. Not in any poll I’ve seen. Yeah, there are other progressive prosecutors that seem to be doing okay, but how many DA races get much public attention? You have a prominent progressive prosecutor get trounced in a deep blue city in a deep blue seat but…There’s nothing to see here?
2 Likes
If you want to do progressive change from an elected office, you best not come across as an arrogant and uncaring AH to a large constituency. His comment that the 19 year old killer of a 79 year old Asian man was “apparently having some sort of a tantrum” was unexcusable and probably sealed his fate with the Asian American community. Would it have been so hard to have shown some sympathy for the victims family? Or even just STFU?
2 Likes
Word. And this is just the proverbial tip. From the folks who brought you Defund the Police. But beware, on these matters in the TPM commenter community you will see mass denial, a real bubble…mostly (but not entirely) white; most born and raised in comfort, most with college degrees. And this is pretty damning, because it has been the elites like Boudin who are making decisions for poor non-whites. The latter has a different view of crime, perhaps because they are the ones who suffer for these preposterous positions.
It has been Asian women in SF who have organized and got rid of those three Board of Ed members earlier this year. This after attempting to cancel Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, among others. Love the ahistoric horseshit: “Lincoln was not sufficiently pro-Black.” (That would have been news to, oh, his friend, Fredrick Douglass - but what could he have possibly known compared to this crowd?)
Hey, on that note, let us commemorate last week, where the San Francisco School District has banished the word “chief” from the lexicon of management. In deference to the Indigenous community. The only problem is the word “chief” is an English word, derived from a French word, derived from a Latin word. I guess all the better to divert attention from the abysmal levels of academic proficiency among their pupils.
Note the complete 180 degree change from the SF Mayor. Wonder why? Tha national mood? Not that crazy about the one-third increase in the murder rate; not crazy about the spike in crime; not crazy about legalizing shoplifting.
Couldn’t agree more. My wife and I lived in the Bay Area for 15 years before moving to Seattle for work. We left a bit before all the issues got real bad but we have family friends who are as liberal as they come but even they were fed up with the city. They lived in an apartment near the Tenderloin for almost 13 years but could no longer take the crime, drugs, homeless and mentally ill any longer. The husband was assaulted one night in the building’s doorway by a homeless man sleeping in it and the wife had a knife pulled on her once as well. Being stuck in their place during Covid only exacerbated the issues. So much so they moved to Chicago.
2 Likes
How Much Can Recall Of Chesa Boudin Tell Us About National Mood?
Not as much as we thought …
And all because of mail-in balloting!